It's 1944. The German army is on the verge of retreat. Pursued across country by the advancing American forces, a platoon of Nazi soldiers takes refuge in an isolated anti-tank bunker manned by veteran private Mirus (Carlisle) and green youngster Neumann (Andrew Lee Potts).
As shell-shocked dismay gives way to edgy paranoia, the group begin to fall apart. Meanwhile, in the labyrinth of tunnels under the bunker, strange things start happening. Have the Americans infiltrated the complex, or is something evil lurking in the darkness?
Ever since Michael Mann's loud but resolutely unfrightening flop "The Keep" back in 1983, few mainstream horror films have tried to combine chills with Nazis for fear of being either tasteless or, as in the case of Mann's movie, just plain silly. Taking his career in his hands, British director Rob Green, who makes his feature debut with "The Bunker", tries to throw off the curse of "The Keep" with uneven results.
Flitting between the real and the imagined, "The Bunker" opens well, with some kinetic action sequences and some spookily dark sets. The cast plays up the inter-group tensions (Jack Davenport and Andrew Tiernan are particularly convincing), piling on the edgy mental anguish of these confused infantrymen. They even managing to overcome the potentially disastrous incongruence of having German soldiers speak with a range of British accents.
By slowly building up the psychological tension through the first two acts, the film sets us up for a startling conclusion that never comes. We know the platoon shares a guilty secret that's driving them all slightly mad, and we know that the bunker may hide more than anyone realizes, but the ending just can't satisfy either of those expectations, throwing away its carefully constructed shocks on a ridiculous denouement that should have been buried down in those tunnels.
The Bunker (2002)
